Hacker Factor Labs

Current projects at Hacker Factor Labs include anti-spam, anti-phishing, malware tracking, and forensics tool development. In addition, we develop general security-oriented tools.

	Anti-Spam Hacker Factor has been studying spam and spammers for over 8 years. This research has led to the profiling and identification of spammers. Some spammers have been identified by name. This research has directly led to many techniques and tools used to identify, track, and deter spammers. The core of this work includes spam classification; the theory that not all spam is the same.

	Anti-Phishing Extending the spam research, we have identified nearly 3 dozen phishing (identity theft) groups. These groups have been profiled, and in some cases, identified to specific individuals. Phishing is not a stand-alone crime. These groups frequently have strong associations with spammers, carders (illegal trading of credit card information and identity theft), and virus writers.

	Malware Tracking Trojans, viruses, worms, and spyware do not appear out of nowhere. Someone, or some group, developed and released the malware. Our malware research tracks, profiles, and identifies these otherwise anonymous authors.

	Forensic Tools As computer technology advances, so must computer forensic and profiling tools. This research project has created tools and methods for identifying and tracking people online based on their habits, residues (information that they leave behind), and even physical attributes!

	General Tools Our general tools include: The Snort "uninvited" detection engine. This is an extension to the Snort packet sniffing and IDS project for capturing uninvited network traffic. Tools for converting timestamps and IP addresses between many of the commonly used formats. Multiple IRC "bots" for monitoring IRC channels. Web mirroring tools. HTML and XML syntax checking tools. LifeLine - a system for tracking, organizing, and reporting information. This tool is heavily used by our auditing services.